Bechtel announces Frank Russo as new Vit Plant project director
Tue, January 19, 2010Contact: Suzanne Heaston, Bechtel National, Inc., Waste Treatment Plant Communications
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Richland, Wash. — Effective January 18, the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) Project announces Frank Russo as the new project director. In this position, Russo is responsible for oversight of the $12.2 billion nuclear waste cleanup project in Richland, Wash.
Russo brings 37 years of experience in engineering, procurement, construction, startup, commissioning and business management to the WTP Project, including experience in nuclear power plant construction and with the Department of Energy (DOE). He has served as president of Bechtel BWXT Idaho, a $140-million-a-year business that processes transuranic nuclear waste, and as senior director of the Idaho Completion Project, a $5 billion environmental cleanup and completion project.
Most recently, Russo was the Principal Associate Director of Operations & Business at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), supporting all science weapons and national security missions, as well as nuclear facility operations at LLNL and the Nevada Test Site.
Bechtel National, Inc. is designing and building the world’s largest radioactive waste treatment plant for the U.S. Department of Energy at the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington state. The $12.2 billion Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), also known as the Vit Plant, will immobilize the radioactive liquid waste currently stored in 177 underground tanks using a process called “vitrification.”
Vitrification involves blending the waste with molten glass and heating it to high temperatures. The mixture is then poured into stainless steel canisters. In this glass form, the waste is stable and impervious to the environment, and its radioactivity will dissipate over hundreds to thousands of years.
The WTP will cover 65 acres with four nuclear facilities—Pretreatment, Low-Activity Waste Vitrification, High-Level Waste Vitrification and Analytical Laboratory—as well as operations and maintenance buildings, utilities and office space.
Construction of the WTP began in 2001 and is now more than 50 percent complete. The plant will be operational in 2019.